Memories
by Malachite Circle
Summary: Is this the first Final Fantasy versus XIII fanfiction ever? :P Not really a story, just drabble from the minute and a half preview floating around YouTube. Please R&R!


"What am I thinking?!?" you ask? Hehe, believe me, I've been asking myself that. This is what happens when I have a notebook, an extremely slow night at work, and a twitchy writing hand. Yes, this is a Final Fantasy versus XIII fanfiction. This game is nowhere close to being released-hell, I don't even own a PS3 (and prob'ly won't until FFXIII comes out... :P). But I've watched the 2 minute preview on YouTube more times than I can count and my brain finally hit overload and had to write something.

This basically drabble following that preview. I absolutely love the song and the whole visual style, so I guess I just wanted to do some moody imagery with this fic, more than anything else. What can I say...I have a crippling weakness for dark, tragically heroic men. :)

Rated T, to be on the safe side...

Flame at your own risk.

**Standard Disclaimer:** Square-Enix and Nomura-sama own it, not me. T.T

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Memories

_The sound of rain always made him remember. It whispered to him, sitting here surrounded by silent stone and ageless darkness. Memories resting at the distant edge of consciousness stirred slowly like fish in a deep pool._

_The ripples traveled invisibly upward, devoid of form or substance. He never knew what would surface, which memory would play itself out before his closed eyes. They were always so clear, however, almost like a waking dream. He could recall every detail, though he had long ago lost track of how much time had passed since then..._

...His eyes flew open and he sat forward, hesitating for the briefest instant-but no, his senses never lied. He rose swiftly to his feet. The only light came from directly above him, falling straight down through a circular window above his chair of stone. Beyond that circle of pale twilight, little could be seen of the cavernous room, save for great columns of polished stone rising to the ceiling and the shadowed silhouettes of statues. He moved like smoke through the darkness, each step flowing softly into the next.

They had come again, the legions. Their gleaming helmets made them look like insects. Lightning flashed across the pitch-black sky as he stepped out into the open. The incandescent light reflected dully off the sculpted carvings towering over the entryway to the great cathedral. The carvings were supposed to be the graceful forms of women, perhaps even angels, but the lightning twisted the darkness around their features, turning them harsh and mournful.

He paused at the top of the broad stairs, glancing at the handful of bodies sprawled around him. Remnants from another battle, long forgotten. His gaze shifted downward to the soldiers swarming around the base of the steps below. "Like insects", was the metaphor that came to him again. He felt no hatred for them, oddly enough, only a sense of sad resignation. These hopeless little insects who could only follow orders, they were no better than the weapons they held, weapons that spat merciless fire with the lightest touch of a finger.

Lightning flickered again, gleaming off a beetle-black helmet as one soldier finally turned and noticed him standing there. A confused sort of ripple moved through the legion as they turned to aim their weapons upward.

How many times had they come before?

His foot fell down upon the first step. The rain had already stopped, the storm had passed, and another had already come to take its place.

All he remembered was that since the beginning, they had come in ever-increasing numbers. This was the largest force yet.

The soft impact of his boots against the stone steps was decimated by a series of snarling cracks as one soldier open fired. The sound was harsh, ugly.

Numbers didn't matter. The ending was always the same.

Bullets exploded all around him as a hundred more guns let loose in thunderous report, chips of stone flying up from the steps. He continued walking down amidst the horizontal storm of gunfire. These bullets, these weapons were no different from the ones he'd faced before. They impacted uselessly against a near-invisible barrier, raising countless translucent flickers of light.

Numbers meant nothing. Ten soldiers, a hundred, a thousand. Each one already had a blade thirsting for their blood waiting for them. They simply had yet to meet it. No reason to delay the inevitable.

He was but a few steps from the bottom-odd how none of these soldiers dared set foot upon the stairs-when he threw out his arm. Ten gleaming swords sprang into existence like a blooming flower. They whirled around him, trailing pure silvery light, the color of sunlit rain.

Voices whispered in his mind, the voices of the swords, sweet, beckoning, urgent. They existed to serve him, to strike down his enemy, to defend those under his protection. The voices blended into a single, layered song of steel and wind and silver shadows. His hand snapped out and closed over the hilt of one passing in front of him.

Time slowed and a reddish haze clouded his vision as his mind was swept away by the song...

_The ending was always the same. The bodies of the little insect soldiers littered the courtyard and steps, their spilt blood black against the gray stone. Did these soldiers truly have lives? Had they ever existed outside of their cold armor? The thought passed swiftly through his mind, barely a ripple before it had faded. It wasn't a thought he could let himself consider._

_After all, what did **he** truly have?_

_Memories of battle. Memories of parting. Memories of a crystalline light shining alone in the darkness._

_He rested his head against his fist, pressed against his cheek, letting his memories settle slowly back into silence, back into darkness. Moonlight glowed gently around him, spilling in through the window far above. The clouds had parted. There would be no storms tonight._

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You liked? I hope so! Review please! You didn't like? Well, at least it was short. :P 


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